friendships and politics [View all]

[cab67]

I didn't lose many friendships after the 2016 election. My circle of friends doesn't include many conservatives, and the conservatives I count as friends are generally of the more rational variety who have no use for Trump.

But I seem to be losing friendships over this year's primary.

Many of my friends like and support Bernie Sanders. That's not usually a problem, but a handful have gone from Sanders supporter to Sanders cult follower. They've accused me on Facebook of blindness and stupidity for not seeing things exactly as they see them, of being a DNC operative, and of not being a True Progressive.

I'm very progressive. But I'm also a realist.

When, during an argument, I pointed out that equating Biden with Trump is like saying that because Mars and Pluto are both further from the sun than you, they're in the same orbit. The person I was arguing with said a comparison between Hitler and Francisco Franco would be more accurate. I stopped the argument at that point; there's no point holding a discussion with such a person.

I've been voting in presidential elections since 1988. I've never encountered anything like this. The whole "my candidate or no candidate" attitude strikes me as unhealthy.

Anyone else experiencing this?

Added on edit - this isn't happening to me very often, but that it's happening at all is disturbing enough.